The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has launched an initiative, CSCE Oral History Project, which includes interviews with protagonists at the birth, and later developments, of this conference which, eventually, brought about an end to the confrontation between the East and West in Europe.

The briefing from Mintoff consisted of one sentence: security in Europe meant nothing to Malta unless linked to security in the Mediterranean

The OSCE is a subsequent development of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. I was invited to Prague last year to contribute to this project.

These interviews provide first-hand personal insights which give colour and detail on events that could not possibly be found in official documents. Inevitably, my contribution had to reflect on Prime Minister Dom Mintoff’s insistence that the CSCE had to be given a Mediterranean dimension.

I have written on this subject in my memoires, No, Honourable Minister, but even so, my perusal of what the representatives of other governments had to say on the regular last-minute difficulties created by Malta was an eye opener. I was particularly struck by what Yuriy Vladivirovich Dubinin, a senior USSR diplomat, had to say.

It is important to record the truth on these clashes, and my role in them. Mintoff had appointed me as Malta’s sole representative at the CSCE multilateral preparatory talks held at ambassadorial level in Dipoli, near Helsinki, Finland, from October 1972 to June 1973.

The original briefing I had from Mintoff himself consisted of one sentence, later elaborated. This was that security in Europe meant nothing to Malta unless it was linked to security in the Mediterranean.

There was reluctance on all sides about this complication to an already difficult task when limited to Europe. Strangely enough, the first support came from Austria and Switzerland, central European countries with no direct interest in the Mediterranean.

After the Easter break, the US and its Nato allies reluctantly agreed to a reference to the Mediterranean, while the USSR relaxed its opposition.

As a result, a link was established in security, confidence-building measures and cooperation in economics and other fields. Malta did not seek to include human rights. The strong opposition Malta found from all sides was when Mintoff demanded the full participation of the Arab Mediterranean states, excluding Israel. We had to accept a compromise formula that limited involvement to an invitation to any Mediterranean country that showed an interest, to address the conference on Mediterranean issues.

The next conflict came in the first phase of the conference in Helsinki immediately after, when Mintoff, in his capacity as Foreign Minister, clashed in very strong terms with his Canadian counterpart, when the latter proposed that Israel, apart from Tunisia and Algeria, should be invited to address the meeting.

The protracted debate left no time for any of these countries to be invited, and Mintoff left before the meeting ended, leaving Maurice Abela, Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and myself, to face the foreign ministers of the other states, a situation deemed as unacceptable by the Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany. He pointed out that we were policy-implementing officers, while they were policy-making ministers.

Andrei Gromyko of the Soviet Union proposed that the conference proceed without Malta, a proposal which was rejected. A compromise statement for the media solved the impasse.

The second phase of the conference, held in Geneva, finished with another confrontation. The Maltese delegation consisted of the staff at the Malta Mission to the UN in Geneva, with Malta’s Ambassador to Italy, Carmel Mallia, at the head. I stayed with the delegation for a short while for handing over, and then reverted to my new responsibilities as Malta’s representative in Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya.

The conference dragged on for two years (1973-1975) and Ambassador Mallia also left the delegation to concentrate on his duties in Rome, leaving Victor Gauci, my successor in Geneva, to head the delegation. He was able to overcome the resistance of many other countries to create a two-page section devoted entirely to the Mediterranean.

The usual clash, to which the other delegations had become accustomed, came towards the end. This was on the wording on security in this Mediterranean section that could enjoy consensus. At one point the ministry alerted me to be ready to go to Geneva to press Malta’s views, but instead, Joe Attard Kingswell, a roving ambassador and Mintoff’s political counterpart at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was sent over to lead the negotiations.

Here is where the evidence of Ambassador Dubinin sheds a new light. US sources have already revealed how during a crucial meeting with Gromyko, an exasperated Henry Kissinger had wondered aloud if there was a way of having Mintoff out of the way, even using, jokingly, the word ‘assassination’.

We know that during that meeting, a formula was concocted which was presented to the Maltese delegation as a final offer. This was accepted, thus obtaining the necessary consensus on the Final Act, which was to have a far-reaching influence in ending the Cold War between East and West.

As stated in my book, when Attard Kingswell read out this formula to Mintoff over the telephone, he presented it as being his own, which, with Mintoff’s agreement, he could try and sell to the two superpowers. Mintoff agreed.

Attard Kingswell had explained to a bewildered colleague that had he told Mintoff that the formula was one proposed by the superpowers, he would have tried to improve on it, thus prolonging the impasse with unforeseen consequences.

With the permission of the copyright holders, I reproduce parts of Dubinin’s version. The full version will soon be available to researchers through the extensive archives of the OSCE in Prague.

(Square brackets indicate editing for the sake of brevity.)

“I met the head of the Maltese delegation, Joseph Kingswell, one morning in [...] 1975. I decided to come straight to the point and told him that in 15 or 20 minutes’ time a meeting between Kissinger and Gromyko was going to start right next door.

“I told him that this was a unique and possibly last opportunity to solve this problem, which was of such interest to Malta. I said we were prepared to help, and I was prepared to help, provided that he immediately informs me of his fallback position on this thorny issue.

“Did I know he had a fallback position? Of course not. But he had to have one. Only if there were a reasonable fallback position was there the possibility of a compromise, without which everyone would end up losing, including Malta.

Kingswell took out his wallet, opened it and pulled out a thin slip of paper that looked a bit like a telex tape. There were a few handwritten words on it

“I spent a few tense moments awaiting his response. Suddenly, instead of answering, Kingswell took out his wallet, opened it and pulled out a thin slip of paper that looked a bit like a telex tape. There were a few handwritten words on it.

“Then he said: ‘Write this down.’ And he proceeded to dictate a few words to me. I wrote it down. I will give you a short quotation from the text: ‘...with the purpose of contributing to peace, reducing armed forces in the Mediterranean region...’

“I could immediately see that this was the solution to our problem: there was no reference to Iran or to the Persian Gulf countries. But the main thing was that there were no demands on the United States to withdraw its armed forces or navy from the Mediterranean.

“[...] I had to rush. It was approaching 10am when the meeting between Gromyko and Kissinger was due to start [...]. I went up to the room where the participants were sitting around the negotiating table.

“I said a few words to Kovalev and handed the paper with the Maltese Ambassador’s wording to Gromyko without much explanation. The minister glanced at this piece of paper and took it all so calmly that I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps I ought to say something further to him and explain what it was about.

“I took a seat at the far end of the table. A few jokes were exchanged before the meeting started, and then Gromyko, turning to Kissinger, said in measured tones: ‘I propose that we begin with the question of the pan-European conference, and more specifically with the question of Malta.’

“Kissinger listened to these words with little enthusiasm. Looking dour, he replied: ‘I have no objection, of course, but there’s nothing to talk about.’

“Gromyko interjected nonchalantly: ‘There’s a new proposal by Malta.’

“Kissinger looked disturbed and more serious. [...] Kissinger’s reaction and that of his delegation are described in great detail [...] Gromyko explained: ‘We got them just a while ago.’

“Kissinger said mistrustfully: ‘I hope that there is no reference to the Sixth Fleet in this new wording.’

Gromyko answered: ‘There’s no mention in it about that.’ He proposed to Kissinger that they suspend the meeting and have a chat, one-to-one. They both retired to the far end of the small room where the meeting was being held.

“Their conversation didn’t go on for long – it lasted just a few minutes. They returned to the table, clearly very satisfied with themselves, and explained: ‘We’ve come to an agreement; the formulation works for us.’

“At that point it was up to our delegations to convince our allies. This had to be done very carefully: it was, after all, a sensitive matter. It absolutely could not be allowed to fail. At the same time, we had to prevent the suspicion on anyone’s part that we were acting in collusion – all the more so since there was no collusion in the strict meaning of the term.”

[A paragraph is devoted to this exercise within Nato, the Warsaw Pact countries and the Neutral and Non-Aligned group, the most significant sentence being, “...the senior officials of our delegation informed nobody from our team of diplomats of the true origin of our proposal and solution.”]

“Finally the wording was accepted.”

Dubinin adds an interesting sequel. He recounts that years later he met a Maltese diplomat, an old acquaintance from the Geneva days, from whom he sought information on what Attard Kingswell was doing. He had to repeat the question, and he could not believe his ears when he was finally told: “I know what took place between you and Kingswell. It ended badly for him, very badly.”

Dubinin believed that Attard Kingswell had done so much for the success of the conference and for Malta itself. “That’s what you think!” was the rejoinder. “Prime Minister Mintoff saw things differently. It’s true that Kingswell did indeed reveal to you Malta’s ultimate fallback position. Yes, it had been approved by Mintoff himself, but the Prime Minister regarded it as an extreme concession. He hoped that Malta would succeed in getting something more. In short, Mintoff was annoyed; in fact, he was extremely angry and he sacked Kingswell – not just from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but from the civil service altogether.”

I should emphasise that I was not this old acquaintance of Dubinin.

Clearly, Dubinin was left with the impression that it was as a result of their meeting in 1975 that Attard Kingswell left the Foreign Service in 1976 to revert to the General Workers’ Union (GWU), from which he was pensioned off in 1977. I believe that this sequence of events had nothing to do with the final days of the CSCE meeting in Geneva, but rather with Attard Kingswell’s opposition to Mintoff’s plan to create an institutional link between the GWU and the government led by Mintoff.

However, the question arises. How did “the old acquaintance” come to know what had passed between Dubinin and Attard Kingswell, and who had informed Mintoff of what had happened at that meeting?